What is news in the digital era and how do we consume it?

In the last two decades technology has developed beyond recognition, which brings up the question of how do we consume news compared to 20 years ago.

Fake news has been on the rise since user generated content is being used more and more on all news platforms. This has created the need for all journalists to check to UGC for legitimacy, especially if that content is found on social media, which is where many fake news originate from.

Facebook and Twitter are used by many people as news sources due to site based options like “spotlight” for Twitter and “news” for Facebook. However, it is unlikely that they will ever become official news sources because they would not want to have to follow regulations that news organisations have to follow.’

Yearly reports for news providers help us see which medium is doing better and which needs a boost. For example in 2016, 91% adults in Great Britain consumed news across print and digital. (47.8 million)

Traditional publishers are under threat by Google, because any money made off advertisements via Google goes straight to Google and not the company that hosts the article. This is due to the Google algorithm deciding which news stories make it to the top of the searches and which don’t.